Sharp population declines in big cities across the map have Congressional Black Caucus members anxiously monitoring redistricting developments, fearful that numerous African-American House members could find their districts dramatically altered for 2012.

The problem is expected to be most acute in economically hard-hit Northern states including Michigan, Missouri and Ohio — all of which saw population declines in inner cities over the past decade. In those places, black lawmakers are confronting not only the prospect of reconfigured seats that increase their political vulnerability but also possible primary election scenarios facing other Democratic incumbents.

“Redistricting is always a pretty painful process. I think this year could be pretty significant for us,” said South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a former majority whip and CBC chairman who is the highest-ranking African-American in the House.

“It will have an enormous impact,” he said, pointing to the population losses in several Rust Belt states. “We’re big boys and girls, and we understand how it happens. We’re going to be realistic about what it all means.”

In Ohio, which lost two seats in reapportionment, Rep. Marcia Fudge, a second-term CBC member, could find herself running in a primary against Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose Cleveland-area seat could be on the chopping block. In Missouri, which is losing one seat, Rep. Lacy Clay could see his St. Louis-based district merged with that of neighboring Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan.

Michigan Reps. John Conyers, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and a House member for more than four decades, and Hansen Clarke, a freshman, could see their Detroit-based seats expand into less hospitable suburbs. Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is at risk of having his Kansas City-area district drawn into more conservative areas that currently border his seat.

Cleaver, the new CBC chairman, told POLITICO that he remains confident of his and Clay’s political prospects despite Missouri’s loss of a congressional seat.

“As long as there is no intent to place me in a district where people have an overwhelming history of performing Republican, I think I’m going to be OK,” said Cleaver, who noted that he was successful winning the support of white voters during his eight years as Kansas City mayor during the 1990s. “A cursory review of the 43 districts’ members indicates there are very few, if any of them, that will be redistricted in a way that they can’t win,” he said, before adding, “I may ask you to come talk to me in 45 days, and I may be singing a different song.”

Still, concern about redistricting has mobilized the top ranks of black congressional leaders. Cleaver made his first order of business upon taking the reins of the CBC this year the formation of a legal committee, to be headed by Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, that will oversee the nationwide remapping. At the crux of the committee’s responsibilities, said Cleaver, will be to make sure that African-American voters are not shifted so as to negatively affect black representation in the House. Fueling the CBC’s concern is the reality that Republican-controlled state legislatures are overseeing the redistricting process in states, including Michigan and Ohio, that are poised to lose seats in redistricting.
CBC members will also be relying on the Department of Justice, which will review some of the newly drawn maps to ensure they don’t illegally dilute African-American voting representation in protected districts. Under the Voting Rights Act, any district with a majority of minority voters is protected and cannot be eliminated or lose its majority-minority status.

“We will monitor all the redistricting to see if there will be a need for the CBC to organize and, in some cases, consider steps beyond just denouncing what is considered to be exclusive redistricting. We are going to look at all of these 43 seats to just make sure there is nothing done to require our intervention,” Cleaver told POLITICO. “There has to be concern when you look at what happened on Nov. 2, when many of the legislatures swung over. To suggest we’re not concerned would be foolish. But I think that what happened in Texas with Tom DeLay will probably cause people here to have second thoughts about trying to design these seats in a way that brings too much attention on them,” Cleaver said, referring to the former House Republican leader’s conviction on state money laundering charges.

In addition to the districts of Fudge and Clay, Cleaver pointed to Rep. Sanford Bishop’s southeastern Georgia seat as a potential concern. Republicans, who have full control over redistricting in the state, could stuff voters from more conservative surrounding areas into the district in which Bishop narrowly won reelection last fall.

Even as black leaders anxiously monitor states in which members might face political peril, they say they are also planning to push for new African-American-majority districts in states whose black population increased over the past decade — a task they acknowledge will be uphill.

In South Carolina, the prospects of creating a new African-American district appear to have dimmed. Clyburn, who occupies the sole black-majority district in South Carolina despite the state’s traditionally high African-American population, has spent the past two decades advocating for another majority-minority district. But he acknowledged that, as the state prepares to add another congressional district, it is unlikely to be a black-majority seat.

“Most of the states gaining seats tend to be the states with high African-American and Hispanic populations,” said Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina Democratic Party political director who also served as Clyburn’s floor director. “The concern is what will the African-American population in the state look like, and will they be divided up? That’s the kind of question CBC members will have to deal with.”